Remember as a kid when you played with your friends and gave
each other piggyback rides? Of course, it always helped to play with a friend
who was bigger than you so they would be the ones doing the carrying!
I was reminded of this recently as I read about King
Hezekiah and his gratitude for what the Lord was doing for him. In Isaiah 38:19,
it reads, “Each generation can make known your faithfulness to the next.” When
I read that, I wrote the following in my journal: “I desperately want to pass
along a legacy of faith to future generations. My children have to develop
their own walk of faith and not piggyback on mine. While I want them to know
what the Lord has done for me and see His hand in all our lives up to this
point, they have to write their own faith narrative. God was working in our
family for an unknown number of generations, building a history of belief in
all of us, and I marvel at how blessed I am to now have my own legacy of faith.”
It’s true; I have a substantial amount of genealogical
information about my family, and as far back as we know, we are a people of
faith. But my children can’t inherit
their faith in the same way they claim the family’s brown eyes or short stature.
They have to find their own way.
The bottom line is this: I can accept Isaiah’s charge to make
sure my children know about God’s faithfulness in my life. I can do my part to
tell them the stories of ways He has guided me, answered my prayers, provided
for me. And I can pass along the tales I heard my parents and grandparents tell
about God’s faithfulness, passing the baton to the next generation.
